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CARACAS - President Hugo Chavez looked set for re-election as Venezuelans prepared for a closely watched vote on whether to hand the anti-United States leader six more years for his self-styled leftist revolution.
Most polls show Chavez, sharply at odds with Washington over his ties to Cuba and Iran, with a solid lead over rival Manuel Rosales, a state governor and political veteran who has attacked the incumbent on crime and unemployment.
Rosales, 53, has mustered the Opposition's most serious challenge to Chavez in years with populist promises to redistribute Venezuela's oil wealth and roll back policies he says are edging the Opec country toward Cuban-style communism.
In the sharply polarised country, many poor people applaud Chavez's spending of oil income on health and education while some upper- and middle-class voters brand him a fledgling dictator determined to copy his ally, Cuba's Fidel Castro.
- REUTERS
